I am a professional writer and spoken word artist. I’ve been sharing my work—and making space for other artists to create and share their work—in Toronto for nearly 20 years. I am of East African descent, with a heritage and history rooted in oral traditions. Toronto is where I was born, and it’s where I call home.

While I’ve written five poetry books, my greatest “publication” to date would have to be my poem, “Song of Sheba,” which was featured on Toronto Transit Commission vehicles alongside such poets as Toronto’s Poet Laureate, legend Lillian Allen. I am who I am because of Black creators who built pathways for the discovery and claiming of my voice. I asked Lillian earlier this year: What am I living for, but to see artists thrive in our city, be given the space to continue our demanding and necessary work? A poem is a verdict, a political act.

On the subway, I see my poem next to a life insurance ad. But no one is reading. I get it; we are all busy, bombarded with information overload. And poems are difficult to read, even when they’re short. “Song of Sheba” is about war and violence in the East African context. A hard-to-absorb poem, perhaps, when life is already hard, maybe even terrifying, and frankly you just need to get from point A to point B because you’re tired.

Meanwhile, artists like myself are being pushed to the margins, and don’t know where to go: how to get from A to B. Whether to flee the city or stay and fight. For Black artists specifically, the challenges of a fluctuating income and an always-worsening housing crisis are compounded by pervasive anti-Black racism, which makes it a struggle to find a place to call home both literally and in the art world. The city needs a strategy to ensure we can access housing—and keep making art.

I don’t see myself being able to live in Toronto securely or long term. Budgeting doesn’t help when nothing is affordable. I entertain the idea of living elsewhere every single day. Of saving money for travel. I fear where Toronto is going and that I will have to go, too, leaving the bulk of my kin behind. The crux is that staying and leaving both feel risky—and somewhat punishing.

Earlier this year, I applied to a housing initiative (a joint effort of Blackhurst Cultural Centre and Westbank Corporation) with 12 units reserved for artists of African and/ or Caribbean descent in Toronto. I felt I had another chance at making a life here. A few mentors read my application, complimenting me on my accolades. I felt the heavy cloud of the contradictory phrase Toronto housing lift.

My application didn’t even make it to the interview stage. Perhaps to be expected; there is so much Black talent in the city and not enough space. The question is, who gets to decide on the contours of that space? Who gets to choose the Black artists worthy of subsidized housing—and what would it mean to “strengthen” my application, should a similar opportunity later arise? I am hoping it does: a dozen housing units for Black artists in a city of three million is direly inadequate.

The lack of artist housing in Toronto is, of course, part of the larger housing crisis—the city ranked 11th on a recent global housing unaffordability list. I know several people, from artists to teachers to doctors, leaving the city for sanity’s sake. Some have been renovicted and left with no other choice.

More Torontonians need to admit that our rental rates amount to robbery. Prices are oppressive and the poor are being removed from belonging right before our eyes. Meanwhile, the city is full of empty condos—an injustice the mayor should be ashamed of.

In the U.S., Elaine Brown, former chair of the Black Panther Party and the only woman to hold that position, is one beacon of light. At age 81, she is on a mission to create affordable housing in West Oakland, California for low-income Black folks. Her 79-unit housing project is called The Black Panther. Her reason for building, she told The Guardian, is simple: “I want us, Black people, to have economic power.”

We need to demand that politicians move tangible resources into Black communities in a public and transparent way. Toronto could learn from Oakland, and the revolutionary tenets of the Panthers, which included affordable housing and breakfast programs for underserved kids. In other words, looking at the roots of the problem, and considering possible solutions rooted in the politics of who has a right to a roof. 

While artist grants, including some for Black artists, do exist in Canada, we can’t rely on them to make ends meet in a city like Toronto—let alone coordinate the time, space, and energy to make things of lasting artistic and cultural value. Grants should account for the reality of inflation, the fact that most artists can work and gig incessantly and still not have enough for a rainy day, let alone retirement. Grants should counteract the need to turn to other work to earn a living. But without family support, this is wishful thinking.

And without access to safe and affordable housing, creating is impossible. For this reason, we’ll likely see artists leaving the city in droves. A 2023 Toronto Arts Council report noted about 26 percent of artists the Council surveyed who hadn’t moved in the past three years were considering leaving their homes because of financial constraints. I can only imagine what this means for the city’s Black artists. Rather, I imagine what it removes. A lack of housing for Black artists results in erasure: nullification of our efforts to make art meant to change minds and even lives. A missed opportunity to create spaces for Black creators to feel safe, supported, and empowered to self-advocate. Our lives matter, and so does leaving behind an archive of works future Black artists can learn from. We need housing that can preserve, expand, and protect the Black arts community, and artists for whom the frequency of the city or their particular neighbourhood is central to their output. To prioritize us in the way that’s needed, and begin to correct the current situation, all levels of government need to work together to be sure we are all safely housed. Otherwise, our future in Toronto will be inevitably dim.

Ultimately, I refuse erasure the same way I refuse to leave the city. Because artists are the soul of this city. Perhaps all cities. But Toronto is home to some of the best artists in the world. To leave Toronto would be to leave behind my soul.

Staying here isn’t my final answer, but I’d like it to be. I wanted this to be a love (not goodbye) letter to artists. Now, I am deliberately trying to leave it incomplete. I don’t want to turn the page on this city just yet.

That said, if you’ve seen my poem on the Toronto subway, take its lines in memory of me. Of Toronto artists who tried to make their mark and move the culture, hoping to survive. Some of us will not. In the end, the artist exists diffusely, but ideas need a place to grow. Being able to thrive in Toronto as a creative is a dream I hope I don’t have to shelve away—nor my own future books, for lack of a room of my own in which to realize them.